The older one grows the more one sees the
folly of attributing people's good fortune to that vague and indescribable
imaginary power in the world which we are pleased to call good luck. There
are dozens of proverbs akin to that about being born with a silver spoon
in one's mouth; we often hear that it is better to be born lucky than rich.
The word seems to have many different meanings, but after watching people
who are supposed to be the favorites of fortune, one comes to the conclusion
that there is nothing we have to work so hard for as this very good luck.
To every man his own life seems the best, else he would be ready to change
places with others, which no man ever has been. God gives to each of us
blessings that are entirely our own. Still we can each call to mind many
a friend who has been in many ways more fortunate than ourselves, and whose
lot in life is more enviable. But some time or other the man has had to
do with the cause, which brings about the effect; it may have been that
he was polite and kind, and some one waited to do him a favor in return;
that he was wise and generous and provident; it may be that he was always
a careful, intelligent student of books and of his business, and fitted
himself for the place that was given him later; it must be always that
he did not yield to the temptation to be lazy, which would have hindered
his gaining the knowledge or the treasure which would make him richer for
all time. The real good fortunes of life are more apt to be deserved than
we imagine - the real successes have been the reward of character and an
inevitable harvest from the seed that was some day sown. People are not
willing to work for what they want - that is the trouble! They feel defrauded
if the best gifts of this world are not theirs, and do not fall into their
lives out of clear sky, when they never have taken the trouble to win or
earn them. They do not see why many friends and much money have not fallen
to their lot when they really never have worked for them. They seem to
think that they should have a certain credit, and a right to riches of
any kind, because they have wished for them; and if another man stands
in the place they would like to occupy, they think it injustice and oversight,
and find it hard to reconcile themselves.

People fail of success
in life, says Dr. Johnson, because of the weakness
of the means they use to gain it - and there never were truer words spoken.
If you hear a man bewail his lack of time for reading and parade his fondness
for it, you may be pretty sure it is affected, for some of the greatest
scholars in the world have fairly stolen the minutes for their study, and
people are sure to find time for the things they really like best. With
all of us the will is oftener found wanting than the way. If a young person
tells me that he has a great ambition to follow some path in life which
will lead him high in the world, the first thing I should ask him would
be whether he was really willing to work and try to make him understand
what I meant by that. We are tired of hearing it said that genius is only
great patience; we all try to find the royal road to learning, and when
we make sure that no guide-post points that way most of us turn back, not
being willing to go with painful steps over the rough mountain path which
is the only king's highway to wisdom. We forget what outlooks there will
be, or what treasures lie hidden in the rocks. If it had been a smooth,
straight turnpike, and a short one at that, we would have followed it.
More of us would be rich and great if it were easier work to become so.

We look at the results of our neighbor's
toil and envy him his good luck, often without a thought of the long, hard
years which had to be lived through before he came to the place where he
could do a good thing easily, and get great pay for it. We notice these
effects; we do not think of the causes; we talk about them as if all the
work that belongs to them had been done in the day they were finished.

Some people have quicker wits than others,
and seize and hold the opportunities of life with sure and steady hands,
while others, more from indolence than lack of capacity, let the chances
for bettering themselves go by untouched. I believe that God gives us more
power than we ever use, and puts tools enough in our way; to every man
He gives the chance of growth and improvement; but we willfully stand idle,
and fret because our lives do not suit us. There is a great difference
in the constitutions of our characters - some men's are weak, and others'
are strong. But it is no use to call one event of life good luck and another
bad luck. God sends us the events of every day, and it is we ourselves
who make them bad or good, according to the way we take them.

A sum of money may be shared by two people,
and one may be ruined by it and the other lifted and helped in every way
by its honorable use - one might happily multiply illustrations of this
kind forever! A sorrow is sent to a household, and one woman is made hard
and bitter and unkind, while another's face shines like an angel's already
with the light of Heaven that has broken through the same sorrow's cloud.
To each of us in his lot and place in life God gives all of Himself that
we will take; and to each of us He gives this world's good fortune for
which all work and toil - if we work and toil intelligently and reasonably.
There are fewer gifts and graces of existence impossible to us than we
think. And if we are called away from this world to the next, while our
plans and purposes are yet unfulfilled, I am ready to believe that for
ourselves in the future there will be satisfaction; and, if our chosen
work was worth doing, the people we leave behind are also the better for
it.

To be rich is possible, to be wise is possible,
to be good - of that we are certain; it is the only thing in life for which
we may try without any fear of failure. The work must be done and the steps
taken patiently in that quest; it is more short-sighted to envy a person
his goodness, and his good luck in being a charming and helpful companion,
than to form such a judgment of any other success of his life. Some human
beings are willing to take pains to be and do their best; the unsatisfied
and disappointed souls are those who are unwilling and who excuse themselves
for their laziness and lack of purpose, even for their undeveloped spiritual
gifts, by saying that they have had bad luck. A wise preacher has said
that prayer is not a conquering of God's unwillingness, and if we stop
to think we shall be sure that worldly success, also, oftenest comes by
right, not favor. It is by learning the laws of both the higher and lower
lives, and patiently keeping and following them, working with them and
not against them, that we shall avoid failure and misfortune, and cease
to depend upon the stray and unexpected blessings which men imagine to
be like the wild birds in the air which may fly to us of their own accord.

One man may find a diamond in the dust at
his feet when he was not looking for it, but many men must have seen it
too and passed it by before he had the wit to notice it and interest enough
to pick it up. All the old superstitions about finding four-leaved clovers,
and "lucky" things of that sort, simply mean that a man who is persistent
and patient in his search for one uncommon and elusive thing is apt to
have a quickness of sight and a power of application which will serve him
in good stead in better pursuits.

In some persons' lives misery and disappointment
succeed each other; but I believe that God never repeats his lessons after
they are once learned by us, and nothing can be what we call bad luck for
us unless we make it so ourselves. It takes both storm and sunshine to
make us grow in grace, and who can say that either is a mistake. The events
of our lives which are not of our planning or provision are still somewhat
under our control, since in any school we are set those lessons for which
we have fitted ourselves. God's ordering of circumstances is related to
our need and capacity. It is these so-called accidents of life which we
find hardest to manage and to understand; but they none the less belong
to us and grow out of our conscious choice and management. It is God working
with us and not against us.

We envy the "lucky" man whose plans prosper,
and whom the events of life seem to favor and not to baffle; but it is
well to notice whether he has not worked hard to bring his luck to his
hands, and whether in the midst of his riches and power he is really rich
and strong. I believe that the lives we envy most for their prosperity,
often hide from the world's sight a weight of care and a burden of hard
work that would make an increasing cause of complaint to a man who had
not learned to be self-reliant and cheerful. God helps those who help themselves:
it would be well if we remembered that saying a great deal oftener than
we do. It is the keeping of the laws of God, both in spiritual and material
things, that makes us successful, respectable, and honorable citizens of
God's kingdom in this world and the next.

NOTES

"Lucky People" appeared in The
Congregationalist 34:18, Wednesday, May 3, 1882, p. 149, the opening
page of this issue. This text is made available courtesy of the Newberry
Library. [ Back ]

People fail of success in life,
says Dr. Johnson ...: Samuel Johnson 1709-1784.
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